The Divine Manifold

Over the last fifteen years, the largely American tradition of process theology has moved in new directions as it has been lured into sustained engagements with French poststructuralism. Roland Faber’s The Divine Manifold is perhaps the most impressive example of this new shape that process thought is taking on in the twenty-first century. For those who would dismiss Whitehead’s philosophy as outdated or irrelevant to our present context, Faber’s Manifold offers a startlingly novel interpretation of the great metaphysician and a series of complex arguments for his continuing importance.... Deleuze and Whitehead scholars simply cannot afford to ignore Faber’s brilliant achievement in this text, nor can theologians who are working within process, poststructural-ist, or radical traditions. The Divine Manifold could ultimately bring about a paradigm shift within these areas of study, and thus deserves to be seriously engaged by both philosophers and theologians for years to come. * American Journal of Theology and Philosophy *
The Divine Manifold is an extraordinary achievement! Faber’s monumental book reveals, with the help of Deleuze, a much more supple Whitehead than we realized. And it articulates, in a quasi-symphonic arrangement, a profound polyphilic theology of pure multiplicity. -- Clayton Crockett, Professor and Director of Religious Studies, University of Central Arkansas
In terms of its scope, ambition, erudition, execution, and attention to intricate yet salient detail, The Divine Manifold is a stunning work. As impressive as Roland Faber's creative appropriation of Whiteheadean insights is, his critical engagement with contemporary figures such as Judith Butler, Giles Deleuze, and Slavoj Žižek is more impressive. Yet more than anything else the author is thinking with these figures in order to think through a number of humanly urgent questions. Herein a major religious thinker addresses a central issue (if not the pivotal question) of various traditions—the question of love. The often playful and inescapably paradoxical manner in which Faber addresses this question reveals the depth and seriousness of this project. This book is at once playful yet profound, paradoxical yet cogent, gentle yet forceful, tragic yet joyful, richly allusive yet experientially pointed. It is truly a tour de force. -- Vincent M. Colapietro, Pennsylvania State University
Roland Faber has written a brilliant and powerful book that is nothing short of a full cosmology of the infoldings and unfoldings of love as rendered in a theopoetics.  His dialogue with Whitehead and Deleuze in particular is among the most subtle and profound extant and it advances our understanding of both thinkers.  With The Divine Manifold Roland Faber joins the front ranks of those few who do robust cosmologies, whether process versions or otherwise.  -- Robert S. Corrington